Notes on a novel: Will Cricket Ever Hear "The Piano Man"?
I've written 12,000 possibly useful words for Cricket and Grey, the book. I was thinking the other 2,000 were tossers but the more I sit here way past my bedtime not drinking beer and listening to "The Piano Man" ad infinitum, I am realizing how much those 2,000 words that won't be in my novel have actually helped me define my perspective and has told me things about my main character that I might not have figured out if it wasn't for having written them. That's not waste. I have to watch how I talk about things, especially to myself.
Because I reread the 10,000 words I deemed a good beginning and even though I have said about 100 times in two days that it is a ROUGH DRAFT of a first chapter, I found myself itching to rewrite it tonight. Because there are a thousand things to smooth, to cut, to clean, to clarify...and I want to stay up all night right now and get it right.
This is the writer's hunger.
I'm drifting through tonight's exercise of writing character analysis listening to "The Piano Man" by Billy Joel. I just designed the sex life of a sociopath to it.
I wonder if the fact that I don't know how to pluralize "analysis" means I should get born again and discover a less wordy calling in life?
I have to listen to music to write. It stirs things up. It takes me places that only music can take me. My tastes are wildly eclectic and I am constantly searching for the song of the moment, it has to be good enough that I can listen to it at least 50 times.
The other main song of the night was "Cracked Actor" by David Bowie. I designed a life changing event for the sociopath to that song. A character that is rapidly becoming more interesting and important.
Building people the easy way. This is so much better than being pregnant and giving birth with your own skin and bones being torn apart and then having to be responsible for a living breathing human being that you will let loose on the world at some mature point but will never stop worrying about ever again.
Building people with words and music is so much easier.
Billy Joel may not have reinvented himself to suit the tastes of listeners now but the reason I can listen to this song a hundred times on a Wednesday night is because he is such a wonderful lyricist. It isn't just his piano playing or song writing, it's the words. The fact that he had all that talent together in one head makes me kind of sick.
Cricket will probably never have heard this song.
When I started the 10,000 word chapter I had a very strong idea of what the conflict in the story was. By the time I got to about 5,000 words I was really working into the conflict that will power the story. And when I finished I felt satisfied that I was solid with the conflict. Then last night I'm (up too late, not drinking beer) reading Elizabeth George's chapter on conflict and something she said opened up a skylight in my skull and I had to jump from bed and run to write more book notes because the true conflict was completely different from the superficial conflict and it felt like opening up the soul of this thing I'm building.
I hate the expression "wordsmith". I hate when it pops into my head.
It's easier to make a character you love truly flawed than I originally thought. At first you want them to be perfect so that everyone will love them. Like real people. Aren't perfect people who everyone wants to be? You imagine this fictional person that you want to build a whole world around and at first you see them in this yellow halo of goodness, because this is your hero. So you make all the other characters ruthlessly flawed thinking that's perfect because you need horribly flawed people to make trouble for your perfect fictional hero.
But the problem with that is that no one actually really loves perfect people.
I personally hate them.*
Once you realize how hateful your perfect hero is it becomes a little easier to let go.
I like Cricket a lot more now that I've given her a lot of personal issues to grapple with publicly.
I love the word "pugilist" but I don't know why. It sounds nothing like what it is.
It sounds like someone who wins vomit contests.
It's time to go to sleep. It's been a long day. Tomorrow promises to be longer.
Having this book to sit down to and write at the end of the day makes it all worth it. I wonder what it would be like to have all the time in the day to write books?
I hope to find out before I die.
*Am aware that no people are perfect. It's the IDEA of perfection that makes me feel mean.
Because I reread the 10,000 words I deemed a good beginning and even though I have said about 100 times in two days that it is a ROUGH DRAFT of a first chapter, I found myself itching to rewrite it tonight. Because there are a thousand things to smooth, to cut, to clean, to clarify...and I want to stay up all night right now and get it right.
This is the writer's hunger.
I'm drifting through tonight's exercise of writing character analysis listening to "The Piano Man" by Billy Joel. I just designed the sex life of a sociopath to it.
I wonder if the fact that I don't know how to pluralize "analysis" means I should get born again and discover a less wordy calling in life?
I have to listen to music to write. It stirs things up. It takes me places that only music can take me. My tastes are wildly eclectic and I am constantly searching for the song of the moment, it has to be good enough that I can listen to it at least 50 times.
The other main song of the night was "Cracked Actor" by David Bowie. I designed a life changing event for the sociopath to that song. A character that is rapidly becoming more interesting and important.
Building people the easy way. This is so much better than being pregnant and giving birth with your own skin and bones being torn apart and then having to be responsible for a living breathing human being that you will let loose on the world at some mature point but will never stop worrying about ever again.
Building people with words and music is so much easier.
Billy Joel may not have reinvented himself to suit the tastes of listeners now but the reason I can listen to this song a hundred times on a Wednesday night is because he is such a wonderful lyricist. It isn't just his piano playing or song writing, it's the words. The fact that he had all that talent together in one head makes me kind of sick.
Cricket will probably never have heard this song.
When I started the 10,000 word chapter I had a very strong idea of what the conflict in the story was. By the time I got to about 5,000 words I was really working into the conflict that will power the story. And when I finished I felt satisfied that I was solid with the conflict. Then last night I'm (up too late, not drinking beer) reading Elizabeth George's chapter on conflict and something she said opened up a skylight in my skull and I had to jump from bed and run to write more book notes because the true conflict was completely different from the superficial conflict and it felt like opening up the soul of this thing I'm building.
I hate the expression "wordsmith". I hate when it pops into my head.
It's easier to make a character you love truly flawed than I originally thought. At first you want them to be perfect so that everyone will love them. Like real people. Aren't perfect people who everyone wants to be? You imagine this fictional person that you want to build a whole world around and at first you see them in this yellow halo of goodness, because this is your hero. So you make all the other characters ruthlessly flawed thinking that's perfect because you need horribly flawed people to make trouble for your perfect fictional hero.
But the problem with that is that no one actually really loves perfect people.
I personally hate them.*
Once you realize how hateful your perfect hero is it becomes a little easier to let go.
I like Cricket a lot more now that I've given her a lot of personal issues to grapple with publicly.
I love the word "pugilist" but I don't know why. It sounds nothing like what it is.
It sounds like someone who wins vomit contests.
It's time to go to sleep. It's been a long day. Tomorrow promises to be longer.
Having this book to sit down to and write at the end of the day makes it all worth it. I wonder what it would be like to have all the time in the day to write books?
I hope to find out before I die.
*Am aware that no people are perfect. It's the IDEA of perfection that makes me feel mean.